At Yale, the Collapse of a Rhodes Scholar Candidacy

NEW HAVEN — On Nov. 13, Patrick J. Witt, Yale University’s star quarterback, announced that he had withdrawn his Rhodes scholarship application and would instead play against Harvard six days later, at the very time of the required Rhodes interview. His apparent choice of team fealty over individual honor capped weeks of admiring national attention on this accomplished student and his quandary.

But Witt was no longer a contender for the Rhodes, a rare honor reserved for those who excel in academics, activities and character. Several days earlier, according to people involved on both sides of the process, the Rhodes Trust had learned through unofficial channels that a fellow student had accused Witt of sexual assault. The Rhodes Trust informed Yale and Witt that his candidacy was suspended unless the university decided to re-endorse it.

Witt’s accuser has not gone to the police, nor filed what Yale considers a formal complaint. The New York Times has not spoken with her and does not know her name.

Witt, who is 22, is no longer enrolled at Yale. He completed his class work last semester, is working on his senior essay and has been training in California in preparation for a possible N.F.L. career, according to the Yale athletics Web site. Witt did not respond to messages left over several days on his cellphone, his Yale e-mail and his Facebook page.

The revelations about Witt’s Rhodes candidacy being compromised are just the latest to muddy the inspiring picture of a scholar-athlete torn between brain and brawn. Days after Witt’s withdrawal, The Times reported that Yale’s coach, Tom Williams, had invented parts of his résumé, including a supposed Rhodes candidacy that he had dropped two decades earlier in favor of a chance at a professional football career — an experience that he said gave him a unique ability to advise Witt on his tough choice. Williams resigned in December.

Even as the coach’s résumé came into question, the spotlight continued to shine on Witt. In an interview last month with a group called the College Football Performance Awards, Witt discussed his athletic achievements, his happiness at having transferred to Yale, his N.F.L. ambitions and the conflict between the Rhodes interview and the Harvard game.

“With the Rhodes scholarship, you know, I think that’s just kind of the mold that I try to live by as a student-athlete,” Witt said.

“No enmity towards the Rhodes committee,” he added. “It was just one of those things where it was an unfortunate set of circumstances in terms of timing, but I was very humbled and honored to have been selected just in the finalists.”

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Yale quarterback Patrick Witt gained national attention when he declined to participate in a Rhodes scholarship interview and played against Harvard.Credit
Seth Wenig/Associated Press

Acclaim for a Quarterback

During the fall, Witt had been lionized as the hero of a badly needed feel-good sports saga — the “perfect antidote,” one newspaper said, to the allegations of child sexual abuse at Penn State. Bloomberg News described his as a Hamlet-like choice. A glowing NBC Nightly News profile called him “an extraordinary individual.” On ESPN, Witt said he would pray on the decision.

“We have become a society tied to numbers,” Jeff Jacobs, a sports columnist, wrote in The Hartford Courant. “Yes, you need a scoreboard to determine a winner. You need a GPA to measure academic achievement. This is no argument against competition, not at all. Rather it is an argument on behalf of something that cannot be measured by numbers. And that’s character.”

This account of the accusation against Witt and how it affected his Rhodes candidacy is based on interviews with a half-dozen people with knowledge of all or part of the story; they all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing matters that the institutions treat as confidential.

Yale refused to confirm or deny the existence of the complaint. “The administration very strongly believes in the confidentiality policies we have in place,” said Thomas Conroy, Yale’s chief spokesman.

Elliot F. Gerson, the American secretary for the Rhodes Trust, said, “Matters relating to Rhodes scholarship selection, deliberations and decision-making have always been considered confidential.”

Many aspects of the situation remain unknown, including some details of the allegation against Witt; how he responded; how it was resolved; and whether Yale officials who handle Rhodes applications — including Richard C. Levin, the university’s president, who signed Witt’s endorsement letter — knew of the complaint.

Conroy said that the dean of Yale College is notified when a complaint is made and told of any punishment that results (along with administrators of the accused student’s residential college). The dean must also write a report accompanying each Rhodes candidate’s application, though in Witt’s case, that may have occurred before the accuser came forward.

University officials would not discuss other issues, like why Yale did not officially alert the Rhodes Trust of the complaint; what it did upon learning the candidacy had been suspended; and whether Yale ultimately decided not to endorse Witt before he withdrew on his own.

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Patrick Witt, on the ground, was intercepted three times in Yale's 45-7 loss to Harvard in November. He had been lionized as the hero of a badly needed feel-good college sports story.Credit
Jim Davis/Boston Globe

New Complaints System

The accusation against Witt, a history major who has expressed interest in a career in politics, came as Yale’s handling of sexual harassment and assault is under intense scrutiny, including an investigation by the United States Department of Education. Last year, Yale overhauled its systems for handling such complaints and imposed a five-year ban on campus activities by a fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon, whose members and pledges had engaged in highly publicized episodes of sexual harassment.

Witt was a member of that fraternity and lived in its off-campus house.

In September, according to people with knowledge of the situation, a female student went to Yale’s Sexual Assault Harassment and Response and Education Center, claiming Witt had assaulted her in her dormitory room. The woman later made a complaint to the University-Wide Committee on Sexual Misconduct, created last July as part of Yale’s new approach.

Like many colleges and universities, Yale offers accusers a choice between making a formal complaint and an informal one. This student chose the informal process. In that process, an individual or a few members of the committee are charged with resolving the issue, without a full investigation or a finding of guilt or innocence. The most significant outcome might be an agreement to move the accused to a different dorm.

(With a formal complaint, there is a five-member hearing panel that hires an outsider to conduct an investigation and produce a written report recommending punishment up to expulsion.)

Connecticut law does not require colleges to report suspected sex offenses, and experts say the vast majority of campus sexual assaults are not reported, either to college authorities or to the police.

The Rhodes scholarship, perhaps the highest prize for young American scholars, finances postgraduate study at Oxford University for 32 students a year who, in the words of the Rhodes Trust, embody “excellence in qualities of mind and qualities of person.”

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Witt, who was setting university passing records while compiling what news reports said was a 3.91 grade-point average, was among several Yale students endorsed by the university in September, after interviews on campus. Yale’s internal application for the Rhodes does ask students if they have disciplinary records, but informal complaints are not part of such records.

“Yale expects its students to be truthful and forthcoming,” said Conroy, the spokesman.

Yale does not, however, look into any off-campus record when deciding whether to endorse a student for the Rhodes.

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Patrick Witt was setting university passing records while compiling what news reports said was a 3.91 grade-point average.Credit
Jack Warhola/Yale University

In Witt’s case, such a search would have revealed two minor arrests.

On Feb. 28, 2010, after an altercation over his being denied entry to Toad’s Place, a nightclub near campus, Witt was charged by the New Haven police with third-degree criminal trespass and later paid a $90 fine on a lesser charge, creating a public disturbance.

While the Toad’s incident was never reported by the local news media, a 2007 episode was widely covered — in Nebraska, where Witt was enrolled for two years at the state’s flagship university in Lincoln. According to the University of Nebraska police, Witt entered a residence hall at 1:50 a.m. on Dec. 9, intoxicated, signed in using a false name and went upstairs without waiting for the escort required for a visitor. The police said Witt also pushed and threatened a student official who tried to stop him, then ran away from a police officer.

He was charged with obstructing government operations, but the charge was dismissed when he completed a diversion program, the Lancaster County, Neb., attorney said.

Witt, who attracted N.F.L. scouts to New Haven last fall, grew up in a family willing to go to some lengths to pursue its football ambitions. His parents, airline pilots in Atlanta, could not be reached for comment.

Patrick and his older brother, Jeff, transferred from one Atlanta-area high school to another so that Jeff — who would later play quarterback at Harvard — could play in a more pass-oriented offense. But after Jeff graduated from Parkview High School in Lilburn, Ga., the team relied on a star running back, so Patrick rarely got to throw.

The family moved to Dallas, where Patrick enrolled at a pass-happy football powerhouse, Highland Park High School. When it became clear he would not start, Patrick transferred within weeks to Wylie High School, in a Dallas suburb, his fourth school in three years.

He shone at Wylie, graduated in midyear and enrolled early at Nebraska so he could attend spring football camp. But after redshirting his first year and playing little his second, Witt transferred to Yale in 2009.

A step up academically, Yale was a definite step down on the field. Witt, 6 feet 4 and 230 pounds, immediately became the starter and held that position for three seasons.

He applied for the Rhodes scholarship from Georgia, knowing that the final interviews would be in Atlanta on Nov. 19, the day of the game against Harvard, the emotional peak of Yale’s season. Rhodes interviews are notoriously difficult to reschedule: the finalists and some 20 interviewers gather for a daylong process that includes group sessions and waiting around for possible re-interviews as well as the announcement of the district’s two winners.

On Halloween, Witt learned he was a finalist. The next day, he told The New Haven Register, “The commitment I made to this team I believe would come first.”

Then, dozens of news organizations, local and national, reported on Witt’s quandary, and the wisdom his coach offered from his own supposed experience.

The Candidacy Ends

In early November, according to those with knowledge of the matter, someone told the Rhodes Trust about the sexual assault accusation. The notification was not anonymous; it was not, though, made formally by a Yale official. Rhodes notified Levin, the Yale president, and other university administrators and gave them about a week to decide whether they still wanted to back Witt.

Yet on Nov. 12, The Wall Street Journal quoted Witt saying, “I just need to make a decision and live with it.” In the same article, Yale’s athletic director, Tom Beckett, described his star quarterback as “a deep thinker.”

“He likes challenges,” said Beckett, who refused to comment for this article. “But I’m not sure if this is one that he’s relished.”

Yale had not told Rhodes whether it was re-endorsing Witt when he released a statement through the athletic department the next day.

“I will be playing in the Yale-Harvard game this Saturday,” it said. “I have withdrawn my application for the Rhodes scholarship.”

The quarterback did not tie the two sentences, but journalists did, reporting that he had given up on the scholarship so that he could play. Neither Witt nor Yale corrected the misimpression.

After the loss to Harvard, when reporters asked whether he was now sorry to have skipped the Rhodes interview, Witt said, “My decision wasn’t based on winning or losing this game.”

Vivian Yee contributed reporting from New Haven, and Robbie Brown from Atlanta.

A version of this article appears in print on January 27, 2012, on Page B11 of the New York edition with the headline: At Yale, The Collapse Of A Rhodes Scholar Candidacy. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe